Round of 16: How Many Bits in a Mario?

[This Old Neon]

Welcome to the "BEST GAME EVER!!!" Project's Round of 16!

You can vote for 1 game in this bracket. Vote carefully—you can't change your vote after submitting it. The top game at the end of the week will advance to the Top 8 Quarterfinals.

20 - Super Mario World - 1990 - SNES
73 - Super Mario Bros. - 1985 - NES

You are encouraged to discuss your choice and your reasons for selecting the game you did.

[Claytone]

Mario World and Mario 3 rank very highly in my personal top games, but I think it's about time SMB1 got eliminated. Great, important game, but significantly less good than its successors (hell, I think SMB2 is a better game).

[Sharecrow]

Mario World and Mario 3 rank very highly in my personal top games, but I think it's about time SMB1 got eliminated. Great, important game, but significantly less good than its successors (hell, I think SMB2 is a better game).

It is a better game.

[Kong Wen]

Mario World and Mario 3 rank very highly in my personal top games, but I think it's about time SMB1 got eliminated. Great, important game, but significantly less good than its successors (hell, I think SMB2 is a better game).

It is a better game.

It didn't single-handed save the entire video game industry, though.

[Sharecrow]

Mario World and Mario 3 rank very highly in my personal top games, but I think it's about time SMB1 got eliminated. Great, important game, but significantly less good than its successors (hell, I think SMB2 is a better game).

It is a better game.

It didn't single-handed save the entire video game industry, though.

If SMB hadn't, something else would have. An industry with this much potential would not have been ignored by investors forever. SMB deserves credit for that for timing, but not for its quality, which has been trumped by many, many, many other games - both ones it was contemporary to and ones that came later.

[TheGreatNads]

(hell, I think SMB2 is a better game).

Crazy talk. Super Mario Bros 2 is a painful experience to play nowadays. Compared to the tight controls of SMB, it's a giant step backwards. Of course, it makes sense since it's a different game really. The real sequel to SMB isn't very good either though.

It didn't single-handed save the entire video game industry, though.

Neither did Super Mario Bros. I don't even agree that the Famicom/NES saved the video game industry, much less that a launch game did so. Incidentally, the term "Atari shock" is a much better descriptor for what happened in the so-called great video game crash, which in reality was one of many such shocks, none of which killed the industry or anything. Also interesting to note that SMB wasn't even a launch title on the Famicom. The significant thing about Nintendo is that their success lasted and the industry grew. You can't explain that staying power with Super Mario Bros.

As for why Nintendo had staying power, it had to do with the quality of the products on the NES, and one of the major reasons for that was the Nintendo lockout chip and the Nintendo Seal of Quality, both of which instituted some measure of control on what products could be put out there. Contrary to what many economists will tell you, one of the best ways to ensure quality and efficiency in an industry is to have massive barriers to entry, otherwise anyone can make any old junk which is likely to leave consumers with a negative view of that industry. The fact that the system was more accessible to Japanese developers also made a difference in terms of quality. Oh, and it also helps that unlike Atari, Nintendo were managed by competent people.

[Kong Wen]

It didn't single-handed save the entire video game industry, though.

If SMB hadn't, something else would have. An industry with this much potential would not have been ignored by investors forever. SMB deserves credit for that for timing, but not for its quality, which has been trumped by many, many, many other games - both ones it was contemporary to and ones that came later.

But something else didn't, SMB did. Quality aside, like you said, SMB deserves credit for its timing, and for its impact and influence on the genre in particular and the industry as a whole. Definitely a giant entry, and fully worthy of a BGE Top-8 finish.

[SkyPikachu]

SMB sucks

SMW was my first Mario game and one of the first games I ever owned. It's still a masterpiece.

[Forscyvus]

It didn't single-handed save the entire video game industry, though.

If SMB hadn't, something else would have. An industry with this much potential would not have been ignored by investors forever. SMB deserves credit for that for timing, but not for its quality, which has been trumped by many, many, many other games - both ones it was contemporary to and ones that came later.

But something else didn't, SMB did. Quality aside, like you said, SMB deserves credit for its timing, and for its impact and influence on the genre in particular and the industry as a whole. Definitely a giant entry, and fully worthy of a BGE Top-8 finish.

I totally agree with this reasoning, but I also feel like this sort of voting is one of the reasons BEST X EVER polls can be boring sometimes. Like yeah citizen kane was important but it's kind of an arduous watch and is nowadays a boring choice for best movie ever just because it's not exciting when it wins.

Just a couple cents. shruggo

[Kong Wen]

I totally agree with this reasoning, but I also feel like this sort of voting is one of the reasons BEST X EVER polls can be boring sometimes. Like yeah citizen kane was important but it's kind of an arduous watch and is nowadays a boring choice for best movie ever just because it's not exciting when it wins.

Just a couple cents. shruggo

I agree with you, and this is one of the reasons it's good that not everyone votes the same way. One of the big reasons we keep what "BEST!!!" means up in the air and subjective, rather than saying "vote for the most influential game of all time". I tend not to vote that way unless my choices are really close. Then I might let it flip a tie.